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View Full Version : Can any identify this mandolin please?



clive austin
Aug-22-2016, 7:09am
Hi

I bought this mandolin, 2nd hand around 25 years ago, and have struggled ever since to find a manufacturers mark.
Can anyone help please?

So far, on Facebook, I have been given the following possibilities.

Reghin (Romanian)
Rosetti (Dutch)
Michigan (German)

Thanks in advance.
Clive
149106149107

MikeEdgerton
Aug-22-2016, 1:00pm
Unfortunately in Europe as well as the United States there were companies that manufactured musical instruments "for the trade". They would be sold with no label so the retailer or school or teacher could sell them to their students as their own brand. That's generally why you see unlabeled instruments such as this one. The brand names you're already looking at could very well be a relabel of a single instrument from the same factory. The closest I'm going to be able to get this is most likely Eastern European. Barring a catalog page of an identical instrument and a link backwards from that catalog to a manufacturer everything is going to be a guess.

With that said, take a look through this thread:

http://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/showthread.php?69327-Please-help-identify-an-old-German-mandolin

With that said Framus (http://www.framus-vintage.de/modules/modells/modells.php?classID=11&typeID=14-18,25,27,30,31,37-42,52,171&cl=EN&katID=4672)made instruments similar to this. There are a few links to vintage Framus catalogs here someplace.

Hofner (https://www.google.com/search?q=hofner+mandolin&biw=1280&bih=939&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj62cnMzNXOAhXI7RQKHTyUBeYQ_AUIBygC#imgr c=Z-nEprigosu4JM%3A) also made a similar mandolin. It looks more like the Hoffner in this catalog page than the Framus did.

There were also factories in East Germany building mandolins after the country was divided.

Stringstrong
Aug-22-2016, 2:16pm
These mandolines with bright stripes and small bowlback were made in hughe masses in the Vogtland area (i.e. the border area between Saxony and former Austrian province of Bohemia -nowadays Czech Republic) from 1850 until 1945.
They were made in tiny family owned manufactures and distributed by big instrument trading companies. So they lack any label very oftenly.
I saw many of them -I live directly beside the Czech
border in Austria. Their todays value is not very exciting therfore.

Here one example from my original catalogue from 1937 "Herfeld & Co":

Ausdoerrt
Aug-22-2016, 3:36pm
Yeah, I wouldn't rule out the "Czech" option.

Here's a reference to a Strunal mandolin that looks very similar to yours. http://www.ushist.com/props/mandolins.shtml

MikeEdgerton
Aug-22-2016, 3:41pm
And now the bad news. They are on eBay regularly and fail to sell.

clive austin
Aug-24-2016, 5:08am
Hi,
Thanks for the replies... plenty to go on thank you
Clive

Shelagh Moore
Aug-24-2016, 6:47am
As I already mentioned on Facebook I would also agree with others here that it is probably from around the Markneukirchen area in Saxony, close to the Czech border. I restored one almost identical to yours last year and it is now regularly used by someone just starting on the mandolin. While the value may not be monetarily high if well set up they can be a useable instrument.